Quick Activity Idea: First Conditional Mingle

A great way to give your students MORE practice with the language you are teaching is to have them create the materials you will use in the lesson. You will need to plan for the activity to take a bit more time, but in the end they are getting twice as much repetition and practice with the language. Below, I have shared the procedure for a fun student-generated activity to practice the First Conditional (usage: troubleshooting possible problems). Simply generalize the instructions to use this same activity with other language points :). Have fun!

Generating the Materials

Set context of the activity with the students: Students are traveling for the first time and they are worried about things that might go wrong while they are traveling. Allow students some think time here or let them have a quick brainstorm with a partner.

Have a whole class brainstorm of things that MIGHT happen and write on whiteboard (a lost/stolen passport, a missed flight, you get sick in a foreign country, etc).

Give each student a slip of paper or a blank card. Students write a question each on a card using the 1st Conditional asking about one eventuality/possible problem from the brainstorm, e.g. “What will you do if you lose your passport?”. On the other side of the card, they should write a possible result/solution (in note form), e.g. “go/ embassy”.

Students write and teacher monitors and provides support if necessary. The teacher should make sure that all the cards are written with the correct form.

Application/ Use of Materials

When students finish writing, students walk around and ask someone their question (A). Asks the question on Side A. (B) answers the question in a full sentence using the prompt on Side B.

Both people ask and answer and then they exchange cards and find another partner.